Sometimes I want to be in the kitchen more than I want to write about being in the kitchen. That’s where we’re at this week, so lemme just give y’all a rundown of what’s happening:

• Japanese flavors have made a serious impression. Over the weekend, a wee cooking marathon provided some snackable staples for the week - bonito & kombu dashi for misochiru (miso soup), richly marinated soy sauce eggs, and smoky dochigara-no-tsukudani from the spent dashi ingredients that has made for some stellar onigiri. Kenchin-jiru, a vegetable stew starring buckwheat dumplings, will keep the party going in an upcoming dinner.

• I killed two birds with one stone by landing on moo waan for our lunches this week which also restocked my supply of shallot-flavored pork lard. I’m at the point where if I don’t have pork lard in the fridge, everything feels wrong!

• In pursuit of creatively using leftover elements from other meals, I threw together some African-style tacos for dinner the other night. Grains of paradise-seasoned chicken thighs were seared, sliced, and smothered in defrosted peanut stew from our Ghanian meal earlier this month. I mixed up a quick yogurt-chipotle sauce, threw together a quick salad of sliced tomatoes, pickled scotch bonnets and their pickling liquid, shio koji, lime juice, and cilantro, and crisped up the seasoned chicken skins for a crunchy, chicharron-reminiscent topping. Piled on top of fresh white corn tortillas (I mentioned that I finally got a tortilla press and am now unstoppable, right?), it all made for a pretty solid taco! The leftover leftovers are going to make lunch enchiladas for the rest of the week.

  

• I had my first go at making pizza by returning to Amrikan for the achari paneer pizza and samosa pizza recipes. They were both pretty good, and I’d say the achari paneer was at least comparable to our local spot’s (Desi Pizza Kitchen) version. I keep saying that January is pizza month as I want to focus more on one particular type of dish each month, but so far, these are the only ones I’ve made. I’m considering attempting Milk Street’s or Kenji’s recipes next, but we’ll see what happens. There’s too much I wanna make to really focus on any one thing!

• I bought and froze several sale-priced pork loin chops for when the salt-and-pepper pork schnitzel with Chinese ranch need strikes, which will be really, really soon. We haven’t had an S-tier meal in a minute, so it seems like a good time to revisit this almighty schnitzel.

• Tonight, we’re having pasta alla chitarra con pallottine. According to Milk Street, this Abruzzo region specialty composed of squared-off spaghetti noodles and miniature meatballs is the OG of the classically beloved spaghetti and meatballs. I’ve actually already made this recipe but opted for regular ol’ spaghetti. I got my paws on a proper chitarra for this round, though (thanks for this Christmas gift, Mamaw!).